C Stanley Motorsports GS Trail reducers

Wanted to let all of you here know that we are now offereing a CNC machined billet aluminum trail reducer for the R1200GS or GSA bikes here at C Stanley Motorsports Inc. This design is quite beefy and provides much easlier steering on these bikes. Stock brake lines etc can be used. The unit is provided with it's own bolts for the pinch blocks on the fork tubes and also for the front fender attachement. The design will not lose ground clearance like some others on the market have in the past. Introductory price is $800 which includes shipping with in the lower 48 states.
With that being said we are also thinking of doing a similar trail reducer for the 1150 series of GS machines.. $750.
If you are interested in the 1150 version let us know. Email : Claude@freedomsidecars.com

Assuming this is what you put on my rig (looks familiar!) I can already tell it's made a difference in steering effort. I haven't yet had a chance to try it on my favorite twisties, but in years past my shoulders were pretty sore during the first couple weeks of hacking. Very little stiffness this year. My wife, who likes it when my shoulders bulk up during riding season, will likely be disappointed this year.

I had heard from others that reducing the trail would bring the front end down a bit. I've not noticed that; my ergonomics are as good as ever!

Will give additional impressions once I have the rig out on the wicked twisties.

Claude, I suspect that if we were to take messurments of all of the critical areas that your parts are an exact copy of ours as you simply copied our design using one of the units you purchased from us. I suspect that if you showed people photo's of both our parts and yours most people could not tell them apart.
I expected better of you then this. You have in essence stolen our design. Your ethics are at best questionalbe. You are no better then the companies that have taken my designs and are having them built in China
Jay G
DMC sidecarswww.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793

Claude, "you are sorry I feel that way" So you do not deny copying our design which is in essence stealing from me and my company. At one time you asked me for specifications so you could make one for your own use. I declined telling you that I did not want our designes copied.
You have to live with your self, if you want to be a thief so be it but you could at least own up to steeling from me and my company.
Are you also going to be steeling the design for the trail reducer that we make for the R1150GS? I see you plan on offering it.
Jay G
DMC sidecarswww.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793

This is not vendor bashing, C stanley Motorsports has stolen my companies design.
As to a damper, we have never found that the R1150GS needs a damper. We can design one however most of the time when we add dampers to sidecar bikes we attach the damper to the upper front strut. In the case of the R1150GS our upper front strut comes in from behind the head and as such will not work. We can provide you with a damper (VW type) and the mount for it for the fork side once we have another R1150GS in the shop, right now all we have are R1200GS's and one R1100GS in the shop. You would be on your own as to how to hook it up to the bike side of things.
Jay G
DMC sidecarswww.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793

I am just curious. Jay, how much different can the part be? It is a trail reducer. There are certain measurements that must be met and the design of the piece has already been established [stolen?].

I am not taking sides. Just don't get it. If it is your design, then patent it. Not expensive and it gives you insurance.

I believe there is room for both of you to manufacture what you do and leave it to the sidecar market to sort out. I don't believe there is room for two of the best in the US to have this kind of squabble.

Again, this is a mental exercise for me...not anything to take sides on. I don't want this deal to break the back of two of the world's best sidecar manufactures.

There are many ways to design a part, The way we chose to do this is I purchased a bike, developed a proto type part, Test rode it for a while, refined the design, put it into production. got feed back from customers, and refined the design more.

Another way to design parts is to buy one from a company that has already spent the time and money to design and refine a part and has been making it for several years and hand it to a machinist and tell them to copy the design.

I consider the latter to be steeling unless a fee is paid for use of the design. Usualy when we have our designs stolen it is not by companies who are going to make the parts in the USA rather it is by companies that are making copies of our products in China. However it is steeling either way.

Yes I could get a patent however to recover the money from a patent many parts need to be made and you also have to be prepared to spend the money to defend the patent. There is not enough money to be made on these parts due to to limited demand to justify the cost. As it is just the cost of proper manifactures insurance to protect both our company and our customers adds over $100 to what it costs us to make the parts. If we were to also patent the part they would end up having to cost more then $2500 each in order to recover the money in a reasnable time so in stead of charging this much for the part we rely on the integrety of other companies not to copy our designs and sell parts to these compaines with enough of a discount that there should not be an insentive to copy the design.

I guess I could be accused of steeling from Unit Forks as I looked at one of their leading link front ends and set about to build the front end that is on my Sportster. I have been asked by some if it was in fact a Unit front end. This despite the fact that there are several differences, one being my swing arm is fabricated from three straight sections of tubing where they use a one piece tube bent in a U. Another is my pivots are Heim Joints where they use a different bearing set up.

Something a simple as a trail reducer which appears to be basically a modified triple tree seems to be hard not to look like someone else's design. I mean the holes for the fork tubes have to be the same diameter and have the same center to center dimension to fit the bike and the center hole has to be made to fit the steering stem. Other holes would need to be positioned to allow attaching the other bits. Guess i don't see that there are many options for making these parts not appear to be copies. What I guess is the most blatant thing copied is the idea it's self, to reduce the trail.

It is one thing to look at some ones design and take idea's from it. Then go and develop a similar part. It is a different thing to have one on hand and copy it.
Jay G
DMC sidecarswww.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793

I would like for everyone to read my original post carefully. No, we did not take one of Jay's trail reducers to a machine shop and have it copied. In fact we did not even have one of Jay's trail reducers in house when we began to develope our own. I did have a concern with Jay's original design as it did not have a raised end on it for the pivot which did compromise the static ground clearance of the bike some when installed. This was simply due to the front forks being kicked forward by the reduced trail. I had suggested to Jay as an act of good will raise the rear of his design to maintain ground clearance. Soon after that discussion he did that which was an improvemment on his design. He had posted pictures here of that.

So, Take it all for what you wish. But, no, we did not copy Jay's offering. No, I am not from China. Again, Jay, sorry you feel the way you do. I was trying to offer an improvement suggestion to your original design and you took that well. Now we have developed our own trail reducer, which is NOT a direct copy... and have gotten blasted for it. Nuff said...Oh well ...

Jay mounts electric tilt adjusters upside down, so the water saturates them, and then charges his customers full-bore to fix his stupid(from an engineering point of view) mistake. Years later he changes...with no recall, explanation or satisfaction to the early customers suffering from his design flaw. Jay installs sidecar spindle shafts that (allegedly!) result in numerous catastophic failures, and then says he doesn't have the time or inclination to perform quality control(pre-installation) on parts he buys from vendors.

Get off your high horse, Jay! Claude decides he won't compete against Stroker, and sell wheels to compete with what Stroker is offering. Claude says purchase them from Stroker, and he'll mount it during his build. You get a wheel from Stroker, and find the easiest way to "allegedly!" copy it so a less-than-discriminating buyer can't tell it is inferior, and then offer it at a ridiculously high price!

You won't get Stroker to discuss it publicly, but I bet he is alternately seething and laughing at this drivel by Jay.

When I asked Jay to give me a fixed quote on a sidecar installation two years ago, incorporating the Ural tub I already owned, he glibly told me the cost of the project would include the $2,000 profit he would have made if he had provided one of his less-than-suitable fiberglass "copies".

I live 50 miles from Jay. I live 3,500 miles from Claude. I would pay the cost of travel, inconvenience and extra effort ten times over to have Claude build a hack for me before I would trust Jay to fix a flat.

I have met several customers of Jay's that have related stories of poor communication, broken welds, "drowned" actuators, sheered spindles, sloppy paint, long unexplained delays, and overall poor workmanship. Maybe Jay has a few satisfied customers out there (Clearwater...the world's "nicest" person?), but they are few and far between. Claude has legions of happy customers. Legions!